


Wings of Desire

by WorryinglyInnocent



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, May Day Menagerie, NSFW, Pegasus - Freeform, Plot With Porn, Smut, Winged Horse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 09:23:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10784007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorryinglyInnocent/pseuds/WorryinglyInnocent
Summary: Rumpelstiltskin takes Belle to collect on a deal - receiving a beautiful winged horse in return for his magical assistance. Over time, Belle bonds with the steed, leading Rumpel to make a decision about her freedom. But as they say, if you love someone, you let them go, and sometimes, they come back...Written as a gift for iamarumbelle-zoologist for May Day Menagerie.





	Wings of Desire

**Giftee:** @iamarumbelle-zoologist

**Zookeeper:** worryinglyinnocent

**Prompt:** rumbelle, air creature, smut

**Title:** Wings of Desire

**Word Count:** 15175

**Rating:** NC-17

**Summary:** Rumpelstiltskin takes Belle to collect on a deal - receiving a beautiful winged horse in return for his magical assistance. Over time, Belle bonds with the steed, leading Rumpel to make a decision about her freedom. But as they say, if you love someone, you let them go, and sometimes, they come back...

=====

**Wings of Desire**

Belle gave a squawk of alarm as she caught the swirl of magic out of the corner of her eye, the inky smoke dissipating as Rumpelstiltskin appeared in the main hall. He raised an eyebrow at her sudden exclamation.

“What was that for?” he asked.

“What was what for?” Belle brushed down the front of her skirt where she had dropped the duster in her sudden fright.

“Your sudden impression of a startled chicken.” Rumpel sounded both amused and genuinely perplexed in equal measure, and Belle rolled her eyes.

“You!” she said. “Can’t you just use the door like a normal person?”

Rumpelstiltskin looked behind him at the wide-open door, then back to Belle.

“Why on earth would I want to do that?”

“Maybe to stop you giving your maid a near heart attack every time you just… poof!” Belle exclaimed. “You do always say that good help is hard to find,” she added, unable to resist needling him a little. “You’ll never get another caretaker quite like me if you scare me to death.”

Rumpelstiltskin waved her words away airily, but Belle could tell that maybe she’d got through to him. Whether it would temper his enthusiasm for simply appearing in her presence would remain to be seen, but she could hope. She’d noticed a few subtle changes in his behaviour since she had arrived at the castle, the little freedoms and gifts that he’d given her under the guise of making her work harder. It had begun with the library, of course, but it hadn’t ended there, and Belle now found herself with a cosy tower bedroom and a good supply of thick, sturdy blankets that had seen her through the worst of the Dark Castle’s harsh winter. Perhaps he would be a little bit more conscious of her nerves from now on.

“How are you with horses?” Rumpelstiltskin asked suddenly. The question, coming as it did completely out of the blue and unrelated to their previous conversation, knocked Belle for six a little and she stared at Rumpelstiltskin.

“Pardon?”

“How are you with horses?” he repeated, slowly and deliberately, as if speaking to a child.

“Yes, I heard you the first time.”

“Then why did you ask me to repeat it?” Rumpelstiltskin sounded incredibly affronted and Belle couldn’t help but giggle at his expression.

“I was more surprised at the seemingly random question,” Belle replied, and Rumpelstiltskin waggled his finger at her.

“Nothing is ever seemingly random,” he said sagely. “Everything happens for a reason!”

“In that case, may I ask the reason for you asking me how I am with horses?” Belle hedged.

“Tut tut, you need to answer my question first.” Rumpel’s voice was singsong as he made his way over to his usual chair at the head of the table, and Belle followed him across, perching on the table.

“Well, I did use to enjoy riding when I was still at my father’s,” she began carefully, still trying to work out why she’d been asked such a strange question. “I wouldn’t say I had the best technique, but I liked it, and I liked spending time with the horses in the stables. I found them to be excellent confidantes.”

“So, you’re not scared of them?” Rumpel pressed. Belle shook her head.

“No, why would I be?”

“Oh, you never know,” Rumpel replied airily. “Princesses have been known to be scared of all kinds of things. I met one once who was terrified of carrots. Show her a carrot and she’d run screaming from the room.”

“I’m not scared of carrots,” Belle assured him. “And I’m not a princess.”

“I know you’re not scared of carrots. It was an example. But you’re not scared of horses which is very good news. Come on, get your cloak, we’ve got work to do.”

He sprung up from his chair as quickly as he’d sat down, and Belle rolled her eyes again, slipping back down off the table and following him out of the room apace. Rumpelstiltskin was never one for doing things slowly, except perhaps when he was sitting at his wheel.

“You haven’t answered my question!” she called after him as they rushed through the castle in the direction of Belle’s room. “Why is my lack of fear of horses important? And where are we going?”

“All in good time, all in good time. Now, there isn’t a moment to lose, so shall we be going?”

They had reached Belle’s room at this point and Rumpel picked up her cloak where it was lying on her bed, wrapping it around her shoulders and then taking both her hands in a gentle grip. Belle snatched them away. “I’m not going with you until you tell me what’s going on,” she said plainly.

“I thought you wanted to see the world?” Rumpelstiltskin said. There was a mischievous glint in his eye that was making Belle ever more exasperated. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“Rumpel, not two days ago you came home with your jacket smoking after a close encounter of the enraged kind with a certain dragon. There’s ‘adventure’ and there’s ‘self-preservation’ and my senses of both are perfectly in order, thank you.”

“I can assure you that there are no dragons where we are going,” Rumpel said, pressing his hands together and giving her what he obviously thought was an innocent expression. The giggle hiding behind his smile gave him away somewhat, and Belle folded her arms. He sighed. “I know you want to travel, and I know from your not-at-all subtle prodding whenever I return from my little excursions that you’re angling for an invite.”

Belle shuffled from foot to foot. True, she had always wanted to accompany Rumpel on one of his outings to collect on or make deals, but she thought that she’d been a little bit more surreptitious in expressing her desire to join him.

“That is true,” she conceded.

“At any rate, I have decided that your presence on this particular soiree may be beneficial to me.” He held out a hand towards her. “I can promise that no harm will come to you as long as you stay close. Do you trust me, Belle?”

It only took a second of thought before Belle took Rumpelstiltskin’s hand.

“Yes,” she said decisively. “Yes, I trust you.”

“Perfect. With any luck, we’ll be back in time for tea. Are there any of those thumbprint cookies left?”

“Sometimes I wonder if you only think with your stomach…”

Belle didn’t finish her sentence as inky magic swirled around them, transporting her away to a place as yet unknown.

X

Belle didn’t quite know what she had been expecting when she had gone with Rumpelstiltskin. Maybe some kind of dread creature in a cave. Or alternatively a unicorn in a magical forest. She’d read more than enough mythological bestiaries to know that unicorns could only be caught by using a virgin as a lure. Usually a virgin who was tied up and naked at the time. She glanced sideways at Rumpelstiltskin, wondering what kind of a reaction she’d get if she posited that thought to him. She blushed at the thought, it not being quite as horrifying to her as society told her it perhaps ought to be.

Pushing thoughts of unicorns aside, she took in her surroundings. They had arrived at the boundaries of a farm, lights burning in the windows of the farmhouse and darkened outbuildings beyond. There didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary about the place, but before she could take in anything else, she realised that Rumpelstiltskin was already moving away towards the farmhouse and she rushed to keep up with him.

“What are we doing here, Rumpel?” she asked. “And why am I here?”

“Because I have a feeling that you might prove… useful,” Rumpel said, giving her an enigmatic smile. The unicorn theory refused to die back completely, and Belle just trotted along behind him as he came up to the farmhouse, executing an overly flourished knock on the door.

Behind the wood, Belle could hear the sounds of people moving around and talking in muted, worried whispers. A curtain twitched in the window beside the door, a nervous face appearing. Belle waved cheerfully and the face ducked out of sight again, the curtain falling back into place.

Eventually, the door opened and the farmer stood in the frame, drawing himself up to his full height and no doubt attempting to look either intimidating, or at the very least, not scared. Belle glanced sideways at Rumpel, but he was picking at his nails, looking completely uninterested. There was certainly no menace in his posture, and Belle had seen him during his deals that took place at the Dark Castle often enough to know when he was intentionally unnerving or frightening the souls who had come to him. It was not the case this time. No, this was a different kind of power play, and as always, Belle found it fascinating to watch the way he worked. There was a stalemate going on in the doorway now, and Belle wondered who would be the one to break it.

The farmer caved first, although in hindsight that was probably a foregone conclusion.

“Rumpelstiltskin,” he began. “What brings you here?”

At length Rumpel stopped feigning interest in his fingernails and looked up at the farmer.

“You know what it is that I’ve come for,” he said brightly. “I’m here to collect on our deal. May we come in? Tad chilly out here, you know.”

“We?” The farmer looked across at Belle, seeing her there behind Rumpelstiltskin for the first time. Her presence seemed to be both confusing and soothing for him, and he took a step backwards. Rumpelstiltskin wasted no time in crossing the threshold and extending a hand to Belle with a little bow as she stepped up into the farmhouse.

“This is my… associate,” Rumpelstiltskin said by way of introduction once they were inside and the farmer had closed the door behind them. Belle couldn’t help but notice the way that the man’s hand seemed to be inching closer and closer to the machete mounted on the wall beside the door, and she wondered if perhaps this might be worse than an encounter with an irritated dragon in a cave. She gave a little wave.

“Hello. I’m Belle.”

The farmer stopped his incremental progress towards the machete and his hand dropped forlornly down to his side.

“Nice to meet you,” he said. His voice was still somewhat wary and perplexed, but there was something resigned in it now.

“I take it everything has been to your satisfaction since the deal was struck?” Rumpelstiltskin began. “I saw your son at the window before you decided to open the door, I trust he’s hale and hearty?”

The farmer nodded. “He’s been the picture of health ever since he arrived.”

“Good, good, I’m very glad to hear it. But as you know, everything comes at a price.” Belle glanced from Rumpelstiltskin to the farmer and back again. Was he going to take the child away from his family? She knew that Rumpelstiltskin dealt in first-born children, taking them from mothers who were foolish enough to offer _anything_ in return for self-betterment, and giving them to childless couples who would offer _anything_ in return for a child.

“I know,” the farmer said, and Belle could hear the desperation in his voice. “But since the foal arrived, we’ve had…”

“I don’t care what riches the creature may have brought you,” Rumpelstiltskin interrupted, his voice silky and dangerous. “The foal belongs by rights to me. You made that agreement when you accepted your son.” He flicked his wrist and a long scroll appeared in his hand, which he then unrolled, the end landing by the farmer’s feet. “You even signed on the dotted line. I would provide a child for you, a healthy son you could love as your own, and in return, I would receive the first winged horse foaled from one of your mares.”

“I know,” the farmer began, “but…”

“No buts!” Rumpelstiltskin snapped. “Please take us to the foal.”

“What possible use could you have for him?” the farmer pleaded. “We all know how you spin straw into gold, you have more than you could ever use, what use have you of this winged horse?”

Rumpelstiltskin raised an eyebrow. “All magic comes at a price,” he replied coolly. “I can always take the child back, if you no longer wish to honour our agreement. We can consider the contract void and it will be as if our first exchange never took place.” He snapped his fingers, a ball of flame appearing and licking over his palm, almost touching the parchment on which the deal has written.

“No!” the farmer cried. “No, please don’t take my son! He means everything to me!”

“More than a winged horse?”

“Of course more than a winged horse!” the man exclaimed.

“Excellent.” Rumpel snapped his fingers and both fireball and contract vanished back from whence they came. “Now, the foal if you please.”

The man nodded, and indicated for Rumpel and Belle to follow him through the house. As they passed the kitchen, Belle saw the face she’d glimpsed briefly through the window, a small boy of four of five years being held tightly by his mother. The woman nodded to her husband as they passed, and then they were back out in the cool evening air. Belle shivered at the temperature change and was glad when they entered a small barn across the courtyard. It was dark inside despite the light from the farmer’s lantern, and squinting through the heavy blackness to the far end of the barn, Belle could just about make out the shape of a horse moving, a tail flickering and feathers shimmering in the dim light.

“Go on.” Rumpel gave her a little push forward. “They prefer to come to the fairer sex, just like unicorns.”

Belle took the lantern from the farmer and moved further into the barn, casting a glance back over her shoulder at Rumpel, who just gave her an encouraging wave. As she got closer, the foal’s body became more and more distinct. He was a delicate, silvery white all over apart from a dark grey spot in the centre of his forehead exactly where a unicorn’s horn would have been. Graceful wings sprung out from his shoulders, folded down along his back. They would not have been large enough to support his body in flight yet, but Belle could see their potential to grow and fill the barn once the foal was old enough.

“Hey there,” Belle said softly, reaching out a hand towards the foal’s muzzle and letting it sniff at her, nuzzling into her hand. “Aren’t you a beautiful sight? What’s your name then?”

She didn’t see Rumpelstiltskin roll his eyes at the other end of the barn, but she could tell it from his tone of voice when he spoke.

“What is it with you and naming things?”

“He needs a name,” Belle said stroking the foal’s mane. “All creatures need a name.”

“You named a _teacup_ ,” Rumpelstiltskin pointed out. Belle heard the farmer give a snort of laughter in spite of himself.

“Well, Chip needed a name too. He’s got character.”

“It’s a _teacup_.”

Belle did not respond, knowing that he was only trying to get a rise out of her and that as exasperated as her naming the objects in the Dark Castle might be, he did not begrudge her it.

“Are you going to come with me?” she asked the foal, running a hand gently over one of his wings. “We’ll take good care of you, Rumpel and I. Come on.” She slipped a hand into the foal’s halter and coaxed him forward. “Let’s take you to your new home.”

The foal took a little more persuading to leave the barn entirely, but he seemed to respond to Belle’s petting, and she kept crooning to him as the farmer attached a rein to his halter. It wasn’t much of a chore, the foal really was one of the most stunning creatures she had ever seen, and she knew that once he grew and began to fly, he would only become more majestic.

“Well,” Rumpelstiltskin began. “I think that’s that.” He bowed to the farmer. “I’m glad that you could see the sense in keeping to our little arrangement.”

The farmer was evidently unamused by Rumpelstiltskin’s demeanour, but ultimately, the sight of his small boy peering out of the kitchen window strengthened his resolve, and he nodded.

“Come on Belle,” Rumpelstiltskin said, taking the rein from the farmer and leading the foal away. “We have work to do with this magnificent specimen.”

The farmer remained standing in the yard for a while, and Belle glanced back over her shoulder as they walked the somewhat reluctant foal down towards the farm’s gates. The farmer’s wife had come out to him and was speaking to him with a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“We don’t need the money from the sale of the horse, Richard,” the woman was saying. “We were perfectly content before the foal arrived. But we cannot live without our son.”

Rumpelstiltskin nodded as he steered Belle away from the house, holding the foal’s rein in his other hand. “As it should be,” he said quietly. “Just as it should be.”

Although Rumpel was never usually one for respecting the formalities and niceties of social interactions and generally took great delight in popping up unexpectedly in places - Belle thought of his appearance in the main hall earlier in the evening - he did acknowledge that randomly poofing himself in and out of peasants’ property was bad form. He saved the needling for the nobles who’d called upon him or who, in his opinion, needed taking down a peg or two. Or for Belle within the confines of his own home. As such, he waited until he had crossed the farm’s boundaries before he vanished them back to the grounds of the Dark Castle.

Belle had not had much chance to look around the Castle’s outbuildings during her time there; ostensibly she knew that they were there and that Rumpel kept various things in them, but her duties had always kept her mainly within the castle, and during the winter months she had not had much inclination to brave the wintery weather outside to go exploring. Now that spring had arrived though, she could see herself spending far more time outside, and if the way that the foal was nosing against her hand was anything to go by, she could see herself becoming the caretaker for both the castle’s master and its latest resident.

“Here we are,” Rumpelstiltskin said, leaving go of the reins and bounding over to what was presumably a small stable. “You should fit right in here. Don’t worry, you’ll grow into it,” he added as he looked from the stable to the foal. “I think.”

Now that they were on his home turf, Belle noted that Rumpelstiltskin was eyeing the horse with some degree of suspicion, as if he expected any moment for it to either spread its wings and fly away, or to attack him in some manner. When it let out a soft snicker he jumped, trying his best to cover the action, but Belle just smiled.

“You’re not a horse person then, Rumpel?”

“I find them distinctly untrustworthy,” he muttered. “You can never tell what they might be thinking. I’m more at home with sheep and dogs.”

“Oh yes? You can tell what sheep and dogs are thinking?”

“Of course. Dogs are very expressive creatures, you can see it all over their faces. They wear their hearts on their sleeves. Not that they wear sleeves, of course. Sheep never think anything at all.”

Belle giggled, and she began to realise why Rumpel had brought her along on this excursion. It was not solely because magical steeds responded better to a woman’s touch than a man’s, although the young horse definitely seemed more accepting of her ministrations than Rumpel’s. It was because he himself was not entirely comfortable with horses, and he needed to save face in front of the people he was dealing with.

“Rumpel,” she began, leading the horse into the stable and getting him established as Rumpel conjured some oats and hay from somewhere. “Considering your aversion to equines as a species, may I ask why you dealt for this horse?”

“You never know when a pair of wings might come in useful,” Rumpel said airily. “I can’t poof everywhere, you know. Besides, I thought it was time to teach people a lesson in the vagaries of fortune. Call it a test, if you will.” He paused. “I dealt specifically for the _first_ winged horse born to that farm. At first it pained him to part with it, but then he did what was right in the end. And soon enough, in a few years he’ll realise that it wasn’t so much of a loss after all. He’s a rare beast,” he added, nodding to the horse as Belle stroked his velvety muzzle. “But not so rare that there won’t be another in his lifetime.”

Not for the first time, Belle wondered at the way Rumpelstiltskin’s mind worked, at the way he twisted magic and deals and wrung words to within an inch of their meaning, ultimately teaching people that magic could certainly solve all their problems, but always at a price, and not perhaps the one that they might expect. His voice broke her out of her reverie and drew her back to the present and the very real winged horse beside her.

“Have you decided on a name for him yet?” Rumpel asked.

Belle looked down into the horse’s dark eyes, framed with long, silvery lashes.

“Pegasus,” she said firmly. “After Hercules’ winged horse from the legends. I have every faith that he’ll grow up to be just as amazing as his namesake.”

Rumpel looked at her strangely for a moment before a small smile broke out over his face.

“Pegasus it is.”

X

As Pegasus settled into his new home and his wings continued to grow, it very quickly became clear whom he favoured out of Belle and Rumpelstiltskin. Whilst he was not actively hostile towards the Dark One, he did always narrow his dark eyes and glare at Rumpel through his soft eyelashes whenever he came within what Pegasus deemed to be a respectable distance. Rumpel for his part, was more than happy to let Belle take care of their acquisition, and she found great delight in watching the two of them give each other the side-eye whenever they were in the Dark Castle courtyard together. She was convinced that there was always a smug expression on Pegasus’s face whenever she came over to him and he nuzzled against her outstretched palm to take sugar lumps and slices of apple.

“He’s never going to be able to fly if you keep spoiling him,” Rumpel complained as she gave the steed another sugar lump. “He’ll be so fat his wings won’t be able to lift him off the ground.”

Belle just raised an eyebrow at this statement. Pegasus’s wings were broad and strong now, and he’d knocked Rumpel off his feet more than once when he had spread them out to their full span. Flying was proving something of a challenge for him though; he hadn’t really worked out how to use the impressive appendages attached to his shoulders, although Belle had been doing her very best to teach him. Not being gifted with flight herself, it was a case of the blind leading the blind, but nevertheless, Belle was nothing if not persistent and she knew that it would only be a matter of time. They were engaged in one such lesson now. Belle had tied a long guide rope to Pegasus’s halter and attached the other end to the corner of the stable, and she was jumping up and down in front of him to try and encourage him to do the same. Rumpel, of course, found the entire spectacle hilarious and was sitting on the stable roof with a cup of tea, his legs dangling off the edge, watching the proceedings and giggling uncontrollably at his maid’s antics.

Belle put her hands on her hips with a huff and turned to look up at him.

“You know, you’d be better at this,” she said. “Since you’re somewhat further off the ground than I am.”

Rumpel gave her a look. “I don’t know what you’re implying,” he said primly, but Belle had already had an idea, and she opened the bag of apple slices she had brought with her. Immediately Pegasus’s ears twitched and his nostrils flared, scenting the sweet apple and trotting closer. Belle held the bag up out of his reach and proceeded to take a slice out and toss it up towards Rumpel on the stable roof. He gave an exclamation of alarm, jumping out of the way of the slice, and glared down at her.

“What was that for?” he yelped.

Belle ignored him and threw another apple slice. Pegasus’s eyes tracked it through the air and there was a distinct fluttering in the muscles that attached his wings to his shoulders. Her ploy appeared to be working.

“Madam, will you desist with the projectiles!” Rumpel shouted. “Don’t make me come down there!”

Belle exchanged a look with Pegasus and shrugged. Had the horse been able to shrug, she was certain that it would have done so too. She tossed another apple slice, and Pegasus’s hooves actually rose an inch off the ground as his wings flapped. Rumpel, meanwhile, had caught the apple slice and thrown it back down at Belle. It hit her head, nestling in her hair, and Pegasus landed again, shooting Rumpel a dirty look and an unimpressed snicker before snaffling the apple out of Belle’s hair.

Rumpel, seeing what Belle was trying to achieve, picked up the apple slices that had missed him and lobbed them away from the roof. Pegasus, his loyalties ultimately won by food instead of his lovely mistress, jumped up to try and catch the fruit as it went past, his wings flapping frantically and the draft almost sending Rumpel off the roof. The horse remained airborne for all of thirty-seven seconds before all four hooves floated back down towards the ground. Belle gave a little round of applause, going over and stroking Pegasus’s forelock.

“You’re doing so well,” she cooed to him, and the horse gave a happy snort into her hair, possibly searching for more apple in there. “Maybe we can get you off the ground for a bit longer next time?”

Above them on the roof, Rumpelstiltskin gave a huff, of disapproval or of laughter Belle could not tell. She smiled and leaned in to whisper in Pegasus’s ear.

“He’s just jealous because I give you more cuddles than I give you him.”

“I heard that!” Rumpel shouted, looking and sounding the very picture of affronted.

Belle gave him a benign smile. “Isn’t it true, Rumpel?”

“The very idea is preposterous!” With that, he vanished from the roof. Belle smiled.

“I think he likes me really,” she said to Pegasus. “And he likes you too, you know, although he doesn’t show it. He always makes sure there’s extra sugar at tea time so that I can bring you a few cubes. He’s not that bad, you know.”

Pegasus did not appear to be convinced, and Belle led him back over to the stable to brush him down.

“You’ll see,” she said. “Just like I did. There’s a good heart under all the bluster.” She paused, ruminating on Rumpel for a moment, thinking about his skittishness, all the ways he showed her that he really did care whilst trying so hard to convince her that he didn’t. He didn’t have her fooled, but she let him think that he had. Still, as good as it was to have another friend and confidante within the castle, Belle knew that her feelings towards Rumpel were probably not at all what Pegasus was interested in hearing, not when she was carrying a bag of apple slices and there was a fresh net of hay hanging up ready for his dinner. So, she kept the rest of her thoughts to herself, content to smile at them in her own time.

Out of sight behind the stable, Rumpelstiltskin was doing some thinking of his own. Whilst a part of him was horrified that she had seen through his mask of indifference and was becoming aware of his true feelings for her, and determined that he would have to be exceedingly awful from now on to dispel those thoughts of hers, the other part preened, because her opinion was important to him. Yet another part, the snide, insidious part, told him both that her opinion shouldn’t matter to him because she could never feel about him the same way as he did about her, and that she was probably lying anyway to make the horse feel better.

He shook those thoughts away, all of them, and was about to poof away, having listened in on his maid for long enough, when he heard her voice again and he stopped, unable to tear himself away just yet.

“You’re getting so big and strong,” she was saying. She was talking to the horse. Of course she was talking to the horse, who else was she going to be talking to? Well, she had been known to talk to him even when he wasn’t there but was listening in. Did she know he was there now? Perhaps it would be better to vanish away quietly. “Maybe soon I could ride you, and you could take me flying. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to fly. I dream about flying sometimes. I can just imagine the freedom. When you learn to fly properly, will you want to just fly away? They say that birds can’t really be happy when they’re caged. Does that apply to any creature with wings?”

With a pang of guilt, Rumpelstiltskin recognised the longing in Belle’s words. She had told him before that she had often longed for adventure out there in the great wide somewhere, and he could tell now that she was pining for it, and that she wanted the same freedom that Pegasus’s wings would eventually afford him. More than ever, he felt like a monster, keeping her here in the castle away from the sky and the light.

He did not stay to listen to any more, and transported himself back to his tower, looking down from the shadows behind the window as Belle left the stables and gazed up towards the sky, shielding her eyes from the afternoon sun. He saw her give a wistful sigh, and something in the depths of his darkening heart was struck irrevocably. It was in that moment that he came to a decision. It was not a decision that he had arrived at lightly, nor was it one that he had particularly enjoyed making, but he knew that it was the right one. All he had to do now was wait for the right time.

X

“I’d like you to have Pegasus.”

The words came completely out of the blue as they were sitting down at the tea table one afternoon, and it took Belle a moment to digest what Rumpel was saying to her.

“Pardon?”

“I’d like you to have Pegasus,” Rumpel repeated quietly. He wasn’t looking at her as he spoke, instead staring into the depths of his teacup - the chipped one, always the chipped one - as if it held the secrets to life itself. He was studying the china with intense scrutiny, which Belle knew meant that he was purposefully avoiding her eyes.

“That’s… very kind of you, Rumpel, thank you. But Pegasus is your horse,” Belle hedged, really unsure as to his reasoning for lavishing such a generous gift upon her. Whilst she trusted him implicitly and knew that he would rarely do something truly malicious, especially to her, she also knew just how quickly and cleverly he could make his deals. “You received him fair and square from your agreement with the farmer.”

“Yes,” Rumpel snapped. “I’m well aware of that. Pegasus is my horse and therefore I can do with him what I will, and what I will is give him to you.” Finally, he looked up and there was a slight sparkle of mischief in his eyes, but it seemed to be a facade for something darker and sadder that was hiding in their grey-brown depths. “It makes sense for you to take ownership of him. You were the one to name him Pegasus, after all. He only listens to you, and you’re the only one of us who spends any significant amount of time with him.”

“Well, you’ve never really shown any interest in…”

“Yes, yes,” Rumpel interrupted, waving her words away with a careless flick of his hand. “I’m well aware. Which is why I think that you should have him.” He looked down into the teacup again. “He’s large enough to ride now, and more than capable of flying, as I found out when he almost flew into my laboratory.”

“That was funny, you have to admit that.”

Rumpel wagged a finger at her. “Tell that to the herb baskets! The poor things are traumatised and will never be the same again. It took three months to get those buds!”

Belle just raised an eyebrow. She knew that he wasn’t really annoyed about the plants, and he gave a small cough and returned his attention to the tea set once again.

“As I was saying,” he began again, “Pegasus is large enough to ride now. You ought to make the most of that. You can take him to all the places that you dreamed of going.”

Belle bit her bottom lip, worrying it between her teeth as she considered the gravity of what he was saying. He wasn’t just giving her Pegasus. He was giving her a means to leave him, and encouraging her to do so, in fact.

“You’re letting me go?” she asked carefully. “And you trust me to come back?”

“Oh no, my dear,” Rumpelstiltskin said. At last, he looked at her properly. The mischief had gone from his eyes and there was something deep and unfathomable in there instead. He opened his mouth, as if he was going to say something else, but then he just shook his head, gazed out of the window, and after a moment of quiet, the imp was back. “Well, would you like the horse or not? I’m always in need of more glue if you have no use for him.”

Belle gave him an unimpressed expression.

“You wouldn’t,” she said flatly. She wasn’t at all shocked by his attempts to shock her, but she had spent enough time around him to know that he was just joking. Perhaps a few months ago she would have been worried for Pegasus’s bones, but no longer. She knew his quips now. In a way, she was going to miss his acerbic sense of humour when she left.

If she left. He’d given her this opportunity, and it made sense to take it now that it had been offered. Even if the deal she had made to protect her people had at some point come to an end, she still would never have a chance like this to see the world like she had always dreamed of.

“I would be honoured to accept Pegasus,” she said. “Thank you so much, Rumpel. You can’t know how much this means to me. I’ve dreamed of this kind of thing my whole life, and you’re the one who’s made it possible. So, thank you.”

Rumpelstiltskin just nodded, waving her away from the table. “Yes, yes, dearie,” he said mildly. He hadn’t used that term with her for months, and Belle could tell that he was trying to put some distance between them once again now that he had released her from the deal and she was leaving, now that they were no longer master and maid but simply two individuals. “Off you go and pack. You have a long journey ahead of you, I’m sure.”

The atmosphere in the room was thick and awkward, and Belle didn’t know what to say that could evaporate the tension that was building up around them except remove herself from the equation, so she left the main hall without another word and made her way slowly up the stairs to her bedroom. She didn’t have many things, but Rumpel had seen fit to provide her with sturdy clothing for the few times he took her to accompany him on deals, and when she entered her room, she saw that a set of lightweight leather saddlebags had appeared on her bed. It did not take her long to pack up her life in the Dark Castle, but once the saddlebags were packed, it felt wrong to be leaving so completely. Although Rumpel had said, not in as many words, that he did not expect her to return from her travels, Belle knew that she would not be content if she never saw him again. She wanted to leave and see the world, there was nothing that she wanted more, but she wanted to be able to have a place to return to. A home.

She shook herself crossly. Her home was in the Marchlands, with her father and his advisors and Gaston… If she went home then everything would return to the way it had been before, and any further adventures on the wings of horses would be curtailed. She’d marry Gaston, have children, and live out the rest of her life wondering just what was beyond that horizon.

After a moment, she took her usual blue dress out of the bags and folded it neatly, laying it on the bedcovers. It was a small thing, but it was something to return to.

Of course, there was Rumpel to return to as well.

Braiding her hair for practicality’s sake, Belle fell to thinking about Rumpel’s sudden decision to let her go. It seemed to have come completely out of the blue. He had given no indication that he had been unhappy with her work - not that her workload was all that strenuous these days. She had noticed that her tasks seemed to be getting lighter and lighter, until she wasn’t doing much more than laundry and light dusting. He showed no signs of being bored by her company, either, their conversations had been as full of repartee as usual.

The only clue was in the fact that he could barely look her in the eye as he had told her that Pegasus was hers and she should see the world. He was trying to conceal something, and she had seen a glimpse of it in his eyes.

_If you love someone, then you let them go._

She shook her head. It couldn’t be true. He was the most powerful man in all the realms and he had lived lifetimes. She was just… Belle. Nothing special. Her father had moderate wealth and nobility, but she was hardly a princess with a fine dowry. She had no magic to her name. What could he possibly see in her?

Crossly, she hauled the saddlebags off the bed and made her way back down the stairs, mulling over the thoughts in her mind. Love was a strong word, to Belle it had always implied extremes of feeling, something incredibly fiery and passionate, something all-consuming that burned everything in its path, but now she was coming to understand that it was something so much more than that, with many more nuances and subtleties that she had originally given it credit for. She had grown to love Rumpel gradually, through the small things about him she had noticed here and there, and when the realisation had come that yes, she loved him, it seemed to be too late. They were destined to part ways now.

Returning to the main hall, Belle found Rumpel still sitting at the table in exactly the same position that she had left him, his elbows resting lightly on the arms of his chair, chin resting on his clasped hands, eyes closed. He looked at peace, and if there was one word that could not often be used to describe Rumpelstiltskin, it was peaceful. In a way, it seemed a shame to wake him out of whatever reverie had taken hold of him, but she really couldn’t leave without saying goodbye, that would be the height of rudeness and ingratitude.

“Rumpel?” Belle began gently. He opened his eyes, a little startled, and took in her appearance. She’d never yet had cause to wear the leggings and soft burgundy leather jerkin that he had given her, and she saw his eyes widen momentarily as he took her in from top to toe.

“The courageous adventuress is a good look on you,” he said, getting up and coming over to her, circling around her for a moment before coming back to face her.

“Thank you.” Belle gave a little curtsey. “Would you like me to come back, Rumpel?” she asked plainly.

“I don’t expect ever to see you again, my dear,” he replied.

“That wasn’t what I asked,” Belle pressed. “I asked if you would _like_ me to come back.”

He did not reply, looking away, but his silence spoke volumes, and Belle allowed herself a small smile. Perhaps love did work in the most mysterious of ways after all. A mystery to be uncovered, indeed.

“I will see you again,” she said boldly.

Rumpelstiltskin gave a little snort of self-deprecating laughter, and Belle knew that she was not going to get anything else out of him.

In the end, she chose not to say goodbye. Goodbye felt too final, and she had no intention of this being their final parting. They always said that absence made the heart grow fonder, but even if it didn’t and this time on the road, doing what she’d always wanted to do, put her life into a different perspective, then she couldn’t leave the man who had made it all possible and not return to tell him of all the adventures that she’d had thanks to him.

Belle made her way out of the Dark Castle and crossed the courtyard to Pegasus’s stable, saddling him up and leading him out towards the gates. The young horse was incredibly excited by the thought of venturing out further than he had ever gone before, and was prancing about with every step he took, taking off every few feet and flapping for a while, and Belle had to laugh at his exuberance.

“Woah there, boy,” she said. “Let me get on before we take off.”

She settled herself in the saddle, drawing her knees up under his wings as she had learned to do when she was saddling him for the first time, and she took a glance back over her shoulder at the castle. Rumpelstiltskin was in his tower, watching her through the window, and he ducked back out of sight when she caught his eye. Nevertheless, she gave him a wave, before digging her heels into Pegasus’s flanks and pulling on his reins, signalling for him to lift off. With a few powerful beats of his wings, the majestic creature rose into the air, and soon they were circling in the clouds high above the Dark Castle.

Any reservations that Belle might have had about leaving were completely dispelled in that moment as she felt the wind on her face and in her hair, the swooping sensation of rising and dropping with the currents in the air as Pegasus flew with gracious ease, and she gave a loud whoop of delight, throwing caution to the wind and reaching out wide with both arms, trusting Pegasus not to make any sudden movements that might throw her off. Beneath them, the vastness of the land was spread out like a smorgasbord just ready for her to dive in and discover. The world was truly her oyster, and she could not wait to explore it with Pegasus, then tell Rumpel all that she had seen and experienced. Taking up the reins once more, she turned the horse in a southerly direction, and headed out towards the luscious forests, ready for her first adventure.

X

If anyone had asked Rumpelstiltskin how much he missed his maid, he would have brushed off their query with an airy wave of his hand and a quip about her causing more trouble than she was worth, saying that he was glad to be rid of her and her calamitous tendencies, be it breaking his china or falling off things. It was, of course, all just bluster to cover up the truth of his feelings, ones that he could no longer deny. Two months had passed since she had left on Pegasus, and there had been no word from her. Not that he expected any word from her, of course. That would be preposterously wishful thinking. Although she had said that she would see him again, he didn’t hold out any hope that she would actually return. Everyone always left him in the end; no doubt once she had spent some time on the road she would realise just what she had been missing out on whilst she had been at the Dark Castle, and naturally there would be no desire to return. Least of all to him.

Even so, knowing that he had seen the last of her and knowing that in his heart he should be happy that she was out doing what she loved, Rumpel could not help but worry about her. What if some terrible ill had befallen her on her travels, captured by evil entities unknown, running into dragons or other dread monsters? Knowing Belle, she’d probably be able to win them over with her kindness, her patience and her compassion, just as she had made her way into his own dark heart. There was probably no cause for concern, but he still could not drive the thoughts of Belle from his head. More than once over the past months he had considered using the crystal ball to try and find her whereabouts, but he had always decided against it. True, he had kept an eye on her when she had still been in the Dark Castle, but she had known that he was wont to do it. Now she would be completely unaware, and it felt wrong to spy on her now that she was no longer bound by the deal. A small, snide part of him also knew that it would break his heart if he looked her up and found that she had found another travelling companion and was falling in love with them in the same way that he had fallen so helplessly head over heels in love with her. So instead, he settled for using his imagination, thinking about all the wonderful adventures that she was having, meeting mermaids and warriors and whoever else might cross her path. That was a far more comforting thought, and at times a rather distracting one. More than once, in the dead of night, his mind had wandered in the direction of Belle’s life on the road, of her bathing in lakes and waterfalls, and he’d woken from these reveries to find himself painfully hard and desperate to touch the soft bare skin he’d dreamed of. On those nights, he would take himself in hand, remembering Belle’s soft fingers and trying to imagine that she was there in his bed with him, crying her name as he came. He felt a mixture of guilt and relief at that; feeling that he shouldn’t be sullying her pure memory in such a way but at the same time knowing that this was the only way he would ever be with her like that, and reasoning that he wasn’t doing anyone any harm. It wasn’t as if Belle would ever know.

At any rate, he found himself thinking about her far more often than he had thought about her when she was still in the castle with him, and this was why he blamed her for his current predicament. Had he not been distracted wondering about Belle, he wouldn’t be in his current sticky situation.

He was sitting on the roof of the tallest tower of the forbidden fortress, with a very peeved dragon prowling around below him. Ordinarily, Rumpel would simply have poofed away from his predicament, but since most magicians, both Maleficent and himself included, warded their homes with spells that would prevent people simply transporting themselves in and out as they pleased and thereby forcing fellow spell-casters to use the doors like civilised people, that wasn’t going to be a viable option.

In hindsight, wearing dragonhide to a meeting with Maleficent was not a good idea, but for now he was going to blame that abstraction on Belle, because it made him feel slightly better about the fact he was now trapped on a roof because Maleficent thought that his coat had come from one of her relatives. The most terrible thing was that because he’d owned the coat for a good hundred or so years, Rumpel couldn’t actually be sure that it hadn’t come from one of her relatives.

“Maleficent, dearie,” he called down to her. “Perhaps we could talk about this like responsible adults?”

The dragon glared up at him and a small gout of flame shot out of her nostrils. Although the fire did not actually come anywhere near him, he still drew his feet up a little, just in case. Well, this wasn’t going to get him anywhere, and he could see himself staying here on this roof for a very long time. Well, at least until Maleficent tired of circling around and decided to let him come down. Unfortunately, dragons were by their very nature very hardy and sturdy creatures, and she would probably keep him up there all night just to teach him a lesson. Rumpelstiltskin sighed. The most powerful sorcerer in all the realms, stuck on a roof. It was probably a good thing that no-one else could see him at the moment or else he’d be a laughing stock.

Fate, it appeared, was not on his side. He could hear hooves clattering up the path to the Forbidden Fortress, and he sighed again, resisting the urge to bury his head in his hands in favour of seeing who the new arrival was so that once he was released from his precarious perch, he could summarily track them down and turn them into a snail for the rest of their days to prevent the news of his plight from spreading too far.

“Rumpel?” The voice was very familiar, and for a moment Rumpelstiltskin thought that he had in fact fallen asleep on the roof and was dreaming. “Is that you up there?”

“Belle?”

Rumpelstiltskin peered down from the tower and saw, with his own two eyes, Belle sitting astride Pegasus, looking up at him with an expression that was both confused and trying not to laugh.

“What are you doing up there?” she called to him.

“Oh, just hanging around,” he replied blithely. “It’s really quite lovely up here, you know.”

Maleficent had stopped her circling and was looking at Belle with her head on one side, as if trying to work out whether or not to despatch the new arrival with one hasty gulp, or to let her live.

“Right.” Belle was obviously not taken in by his casual attitude in the slightest. “So, you won’t be needing Pegasus and me to fly up and give you a lift, then?”

“Of course not!” Rumpelstiltskin scoffed. “I can come down at any time I choose. I’m just… choosing not to.”

“Would the choosing not to have something to do with the very peeved dragon?”

“I have a name,” the dragon rasped out, looking from Rumpelstiltskin to Belle and back again. “Really, Rumpel? The maid?”

Rumpel ignored Maleficent’s incredulous tone and turned back to Belle. “I don’t need your assistance, dearie, thank you for the offer.”

Belle just raised an eyebrow. So did Maleficent. The two ladies - well, lady and dragon - exchanged a knowing look, and Belle shrugged, pulling on Pegasus’s reins to turn him.

“Well, I guess we’ll be off then.”

“Wait!” Rumpel called, wishing that he hadn’t sounded quite so desperate. Belle paused, looking back over her shoulder. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t want her help getting down, but that now that she had come back into his life so unexpectedly, he couldn’t bear to see her leave it again so soon. “Erm…”

Maleficent rolled her eyes. “Oh, just go and get him,” she growled. “If I have to see him going all moon-eyed about you one more time I might not be held responsible for my actions.”

Belle smiled, pressing her heels into Pegasus’s flanks and stroking his wings, and with a few powerful beats, she was soaring up towards him.

“Do you always get into this much trouble when I’m not here?” she chided him gently. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have gone if I knew you were going to start tickling sleeping dragons.”

“I did not tickle her!” Rumpel exclaimed.

“If he’d tickled me he would be dead,” Maleficent added from the ground. She had settled down on her scaly belly, front paws folded, and she was watching the scene going on in the air with amusement. At least, Rumpel thought it was amusement. One could never quite tell with Maleficent when she was in her dragon form.

Carefully, Belle got Pegasus to turn so that he was hovering as close to the roof as possible.

“Well, are you coming, Rumpel?” she asked, indicating for him to get onto the horse’s back behind her. Pegasus was looking at him out of the corner of his eye, and Rumpel was almost about to say that he was fine taking his chances with the dragon after all, when he remembered that no matter what his opinion of Rumpel might be, Pegasus would never do anything that would harm Belle. She held out a hand to him and with a lot of extremely graceless fumbling, he managed to get from the roof onto Pegasus.

“Hold on tight!” Belle said to him as the horse began to flap his wings again. Rumpel looked around frantically for some kind of handhold.

“To what?”

“To me, you idiot!” Belle sighed and let go of the reins, reaching around behind her to grab his hands and pull them firmly around her waist before she took up the reins again and urged Pegasus to climb higher, his powerful wings taking them away from the Forbidden Fortress and over the forest. Belle gave Maleficent a benign wave as they left, but Rumpel didn’t trust himself to let go of her and not fall off. He didn’t think that Pegasus would be all that inclined to try and catch him.

And truth be told, of course, he didn’t want to let go of Belle. He didn’t think that he had ever been this close to her for this long, and he wanted to stay with his arms around her for as long as possible. He never thought that he would ever have this opportunity, and he wanted to keep a hold of it, to imprint it into his memory for when he returned to his lonely bed and his heady dreams of Belle and him together in a way that they simply couldn’t be in life.

They continued to soar, and Rumpel chanced to open his eyes, looking down at the expanses of green forests and fields that were racing past below them before deciding that looking down really wasn’t a great idea and focussing on what was right in front of him instead. Adventuring had been good for Belle, he decided. Whilst she had always been confident and stood up for herself and for others, never meek in spite of her position, she seemed to have a much greater sense of self now, as if she had discovered her true identity. Sitting there on Pegasus’s back looked like the most natural place in the world for her. Rumpel sighed. It served as further proof that he had made the right decision in letting her go. Belle was a creature of light and life, and she seemed so now more than ever. She would never have thrived like this in the castle.

Presently she glanced over her shoulder and grinned at him.

“What do you say, Rumpel?” she asked. “Shall we go higher?”

“No!” Rumpelstiltskin yelped. “No, no, I’m quite happy for you to put me down now. I think I’ve had quite enough air for one day, thank you.”

“Are you sure? Pegasus has just learned how to loop-the-loop in mid-air, it’s really a thrilling experience.”

“No!” Rumpel found himself holding onto her even tighter at the thought of the horse flying upside down for any length of time, and he felt Belle’s laugh vibrate through her body.

“That one was a quip, Rumpel,” she said. “Not serious.”

Rumpel let out a shaky sigh of relief. “I was a bad influence on you,” he muttered to her back.

“What do you mean, ‘was’?” Belle asked. “You’re still a bad influence on me. But I don’t think that I would call it bad, per se. You’ve taught me an awful lot, you know.”

They had settled into a gentle downward spiral, Pegasus’s wings flapping lazily as he rode the winds down towards the ground. Glad to be on the descent, Rumpel tried to take a little time to appreciate his surroundings, but instead he kept coming back to Belle in his arms. Although her hair was braided back from her face, a few strands had escaped and were blowing about around her head like an auburn halo, and he could breathe in her scent, a little muskier from her time on the road but still as intoxicating as ever. The image of her bathing surrounded by nature came to him unbidden once again, and coupled with the feel of her body soft and warm in his arms, and just the very sight of her again looking so beautiful and confident… Now that he was no longer so scared of falling to his death, he could feel that his body was beginning to react, and he tried to shift his hips so that he was no longer pressed up quite so close behind her lest she feel him.

They landed smoothly on the ground in a clearing in the forest, and Belle let Pegasus walk along for a little while to cool down after his exertions before she stopped him, slipping daintily off his back and holding out a hand to help Rumpel down.

“You know, ordinarily in the stories it’s the lady who has to be rescued from the dragon,” he said, brushing himself down and ascertaining that he had not in fact sustained any injuries from the ride.

“I know,” Belle said, her voice calm and matter of fact. “I’ve read enough of those books to know how it goes, and I find that it’s such a boring and repetitive narrative. I decided I’d far rather be the knight with the valiant steed and write my own story, rescuing the damsel Dark One in distress.”

She stroked Pegasus’s muzzle and he nosed against her, searching for sugar lumps no doubt. When Belle yielded none, he looked over at Rumpel, then narrowed his eyes, as if giving it up as a bad job before he’d even begun.

Rumpelstiltskin turned back to Belle. There were all kinds of things that he could say, all kinds of quips and remarks he could make, but he decided against it in favour of brutal honesty instead. After all, it wasn’t as if their paths were going to cross again after this fluke meeting, was it?

“I think it suits you,” he said. “You make a far more intelligent and courageous knight than many I’ve met.”

Belle’s cheeks coloured in a light blush. “Thank you.”

She untied the saddle bags from Pegasus and took off his saddle and bridle, patting his flank, and the horse pranced away happily, moving through the trees and nibbling at the grass.

“Are you sure that’s wise?” Rumpel asked.

“Of course,” Belle smiled. “I know that you think all horses are shifty creatures, but Pegasus always comes when I call him.”

They watched the horse moving away until he was just a smear of white visible through the trees, and then Rumpel turned his attention back to Belle. As much as he wanted to prolong this moment with her forever, he knew that he could not and should not.

“Well, thank you for rescuing me from my distress,” he said, raising a hand and making to disappear from the scene before it could become awkward or before the growing problem in his trousers became more obvious.

“You’re really just going to leave?” Belle asked. She folded his arms, giving him an unimpressed look. “You know, normally the damsel in distress gives the knight in shining armour a token of her gratitude.” A mischievous smile began to play over her features, and Rumpelstiltskin lowered his hand, a little on his guard, wondering where she was going with this.

“What kind of token did you have in mind?” he asked.

“Well, I think that virginity’s the usual going rate,” Belle replied, completely matter of fact, and Rumpel had to snort.

“Sorry my dear, that ship sailed some time ago.”

“Yes, well, I suppose we can’t have everything,” Belle said.  She gave a little giggle in spite of herself as if she couldn’t believe that she’d had the audacity to suggest it. “But in that case, how about a kiss?”

“A… kiss?” His voice shouldn’t have been as squeaky as it was, but Belle made no comment.

“A kiss,” Belle repeated, taking a step closer to him. Rumpel’s instinct was to back away, but he found himself unable to move, transfixed by her plump pink lips, so lovely and inviting as her tongue darted out to lick them. “I’d like to kiss you, Rumpelstiltskin. I’ve wanted to for quite some time now.”

Rumpelstiltskin blinked, trying to digest the meaning of Belle’s words, so simple and yet so utterly incomprehensible at the same time.

“You want to kiss me?”

Belle nodded. “Very much so. But if you don’t want to, then that’s ok. You can poof away, I won’t be offended. And I’ll keep my distance. But the more I’ve been travelling and the more I’ve been away, the more my mind keeps coming back to you.” She gave a little shrug. “You do know what they say, that absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

“But… You left,” Rumpelstiltskin said. He was horrible aware of how small his voice sounded, like a child who was learning for the first time that life was unfair.

“I did. Because you gave me the opportunity to leave and do what I always wanted to. But I did say that I would see you again,” Belle said. “I was always intending to come back.”

Well, that was true. She had said that she would see him again, but at the time, Rumpelstiltskin had not believed her, unable and unwilling to entertain the thought lest he be disappointed when she inevitably did not return. But here she was, returned, and it was such a wonderful surprise that he was still having some trouble getting his head around it.

“But I think that you would like to kiss me,” Belle continued, going back to their first train of conversation.

“And what makes you think that?” He’d intended the words to be snarky and sharp, but she’d thrown him so completely off balance that they were throaty, broken almost, full of the tumultuous emotions that he couldn’t stop himself from feeling.

“Well, I think it might partly be because you let me go in the first place. My happiness was more important to you than your deal. I think that was the moment when I first realised just how much you meant to me, and I to you.”

Rumpelstiltskin nodded. There were only a couple of inches between them now, and Belle reached out with one hand, resting it gently against his cheek. Before he knew it, she was leaning in, closing her eyes and pressing her lips up against his own.

Rumpel had not kissed a woman in many years, but even despite that lack of recent experience, he knew that this kiss was unlike any he’d had before. Belle was firm in her movements, confident, going after what she wanted with no reservations, but there was nothing fierce or intrusive in her kiss. She was passionate but respectful, an incredible balance to achieve, and Rumpelstiltskin could not help but return her affections wholeheartedly, bringing his hands to rest on her waist as her hands slipped round to card into his hair. A small part of him was still trying to convince himself that he was dreaming, but as their kiss became increasingly heated, Belle accidentally nipped his bottom lip with her teeth, the momentary smart of pain reassuring him that this was all very, beautifully real.

“Of course,” Belle said breathlessly when they broke apart, “there’s also the fact that your trousers don’t leave all that much to the imagination.”

Rumpelstiltskin glanced down at his crotch and the growing bulge there, and he looked up at Belle, trying to gauge her reaction. She didn’t seem to be recoiling like he assumed she would. In fact, there was a hunger in her bright eyes that spoke of a desire not at all encouraged in young ladies, one that made Rumpel love her all the more.

“Do you want me, Rumpelstiltskin?” she asked.

He nodded. There could be no denying it now. Not when she was in his arms and she could feel very well for herself just how much he wanted her.

“Yes,” he rasped. “Yes, I want you so much, my lovely Belle.”

“Good,” Belle replied, and her voice was beginning to sound as wrecked as he felt. “Then perhaps we can renegotiate the virginity part of the trade-off.”

“I…” Rumpel began, but then he realised what she was offering him. “Are you sure? You want me to be your first? To take your maidenhood?”

“Yes. I trust you, Rumpelstiltskin. I… I love you. I can’t imagine wanting anyone other than you to be my first.”

There were several arguments against it. He was about three hundred years older than she was for a start, which was a really quite ridiculous age gap. Then there was his appearance; certainly, he was shaped like a normal man, but his rough, greeny-grey skin was the same all over. Then there was the setting, of course. Belle deserved a soft mattress and silken sheets, not a circle of grass in the middle of a forest...

“Besides,” Belle said, brushing her lips against his cheek. “You cannot take what is freely offered.”

In that moment, Rumpelstiltskin was undone, and he slanted his mouth over Belle’s again, feeling how eagerly she accepted him and responded to his kiss. If what they were doing was wrong, well, Rumpelstiltskin didn’t want to be right. He had done a lot of wrong things in his time, and somehow this really didn’t feel like one of them.

Pulling away from him, Belle’s hands dropped to her waist, unfastening the belt with the small knife that was tied there before beginning to unlace the front of her jacket, and Rumpel’s hands stilled hers.

“Let me, please,” he said, voice hoarse and breathless with the desire that she was arousing in him.

“Be my guest,” Belle replied, “but only if I get to return the compliment.” She slipped her fingers out of his grip and planted her hands firmly against his chest; Rumpelstiltskin wondered if she could feel the pounding of his heartbeat through his layers of clothing. Running her hands over the textured dragonhide for a moment, she slipped her hands inside his coat and pushed it off his shoulders. It dropped to the ground heavily and Belle made equally quick work of his waistcoat. With the high collar gone, his neck was now exposed, and Belle leaned in to press a soft kiss against his pulse point, sucking a little.

“Careful there,” Rumpel said. “I’d hate for anyone to think I was up to no good.”

Belle’s response was to press her lips harder against him, and she laved her tongue over the mark that she had left, claiming him as hers.

“Well, if you’re up to no good, then I’m up to no good as well,” she said, pulling off the little scarf tucked around her neck and offering the delicate column of her throat up to him. “I think I’d rather like for people to see that, actually.”

Rumpelstiltskin just chuckled; he knew that it would be pointless to ask Belle if she was sure. She never did anything by halves, it seemed, and he was more than happy to go along with her. This was right, maybe the first thing he’d done in three hundred rotten years that had been right. He had dealt for Belle and she had come with him willingly and mostly graciously, and when the time had come, he had made the right choice in letting her go.

Because she had come back, despite all the odds. She had returned freely and with love in her heart, whereas if he had kept her at the castle, afraid of letting her go lest he never see her again, whatever feelings she may have developed in those circumstances may have quickly turned to resentment as the man she loved prevented her from being her best self.

He loved her. She loved him. It was such a small thing, and yet in the end it meant so much to them both.

He bypassed her neck and kissed her lips again, taking his time as he nibbled his way down from her mouth, over her jaw to her throat, marking her in the same place and the same way as she had done him. She was his, and he was hers, and although his brain was still having some trouble putting those two concepts together and there was a snide voice telling him that it was all a dream and it wouldn’t last, Rumpelstiltskin ignored it. If this was a dream, well, it was a beautiful dream that he would be sad to wake from, but there was no reason not to enjoy the dream whilst it lasted. All the same, he could still feel the tingling sensation against his neck where Belle had sucked at him. Surely that meant that all of this was glorious reality?

His hands returned to the front of her jacket, long nails carefully unlacing her, and Belle wriggled out of the jacket with impatience. The shirt she wore beneath it was a pale golden colour, and Rumpel would have to admit that perhaps there had been a little bit of vanity in mind when he had first conjured it for her. Although the fabric was thick and practical, he could still see the points of her nipples stirring beneath, and he couldn’t resist reaching out and cupping her breasts, pulling the shirt tight over the hard buds and making her gasp with the sensation. He rubbed her through the fabric, plucking and squeezing delicately, and Belle arched her back, pushing her breasts more firmly into his hands.

“Yes, Rumpel,” she breathed. “Yes, please touch me there.”

He could hardly deny her request, not when it was uttered in such a husky, pleading voice. She sounded desperate for his fingers on her skin, and Rumpelstiltskin was never one to deny a desperate soul.

Not that there was any magic involved in this particularly wonderful exchange of course, and not that he would extract any price for it. Just being allowed to touch her like this was more than enough reward in itself. He snaked his hands down her body to the hem of her shirt, grasping it tightly and lifting it a couple of inches to expose the pale skin of her soft, flat stomach. Even the sight of that small amount of her body was enough to make him gulp, and he felt his cock react very favourably to the uncovering, eagerly anticipating what he was going to see next. Good Gods above, if this was what seeing her belly did to him then he wondered if he’d even be able to last until they were both completely naked.

Belle gave him a nod and he pulled the shirt off over her head, gazing at her bare breasts. She was small and perfectly formed, dusky rose nipples begging to be kissed and sucked. As he stared at her, he saw the blush beginning to rise in her cheeks, the soft pink working its way down over her chest.

“Rumpel?” she hedged.

“Oh _Belle_.” There was so much that he could have said, but nothing in that moment seemed to be appropriate, so he stuck to her name. He couldn’t go wrong with that. “Belle.”

“Rumpel,” she replied with a happy sigh as he bent his head to her breasts, swirling his tongue over each of her nipples in turn, gently tugging with his teeth until she keened and moaned beneath his touch. Then her hands were in her hair, tugging him up and away from her chest to plant a fierce, plundering kiss on his lips.

“Did I hurt you?” Rumpelstiltskin asked. For all he felt like he was in control, the beast of the Dark One was always there, bubbling below the surface, and he would never be able to forgive himself if he had gone too far in his ardour.

“Oh no,” Belle said, and there was a mischievous little smile on her face. “Not at all. Quite the opposite in fact. But now I think that it’s time I had a turn.”

He wanted to protest, to tell her that she deserved a whole world of pleasure that he would be happy to give her, but those protests died in his throat as she quickly worked his shirt buttons, spreading the two halves and slipping the silk from his shoulders before mapping his chest with her hands, her fingernails scraping a little over his sensitive skin and making his own nipples tighten as she brushed over them.

“May I?” she asked, a little shyly.

“Certainly,” Rumpel replied, adding after a moment. “May you what?”

“Kiss you there, like you did me.”

Rumpel nodded eagerly, and she pressed a careful kiss to the point of his collar bones, working her way down gradually, mimicking his own ministrations. She lapped the flat of his tongue over his nipples, making him hiss and tangle a hand in her hair, wanting to keep her there for as long as he could. Even so, the pressure in his trousers was becoming painful now, reminding him that there would hopefully be more to come. He pressed his free hand against his crotch; there was no hiding his obvious erection any more, and rubbed himself up against his palm, trying to ease his own feelings of desperation. He felt Belle smile against his chest and she looked up at him, still with that naughty little expression on her face. A moment later, he felt small hand snake beneath his, cupping the unsightly bulge and stroking him gently.

“Is it painful?” she asked. “Squeezed in so tightly?”

“A little,” Rumpel admitted. “More… maddening, though.”

Belle glanced down, biting her lip in concentration as she fiddled with the lacings of his trousers. “You shouldn’t be uncomfortable,” she said as she worked. “I know you wear your leather and hide like armour, but you don’t need it now. Not with me.”

Rumpel nodded and stayed her hands. No, Belle was right. He did not need his armour with her and he should not be ashamed of his appearance. They both wanted this, disrobing fully was a natural consequence, and if she was destined to reject him now, then so be it.

“There’s a quicker way,” he said, untangling her fingers and waving his hand, removing his trousers and boots in one sweep, freeing his throbbing cock. There was silence for a moment as Belle took in the sight of him, and just at the moment when Rumpelstiltskin was about to panic and say something, she reached out, a little tentatively, stroking up the underside of his cock with one fingertip. The touch, so delicate and dancing, made him groan, and Belle looked up, alarmed.

“Are you all right?”

Rumpel nodded eagerly, feeling really quite ashamed of how croaky his voice is when he replied. “I’m very good.”

Emboldened by this affirmation, Belle curled her hand around his length loosely, pumping him up and down, and Rumpel bit his tongue, the momentary pain a distraction from the wonderful things that her hand was doing, trying to hold out. It would never do for this to be over before it had because his member was so excited to be touched by a hand other than his own for the first time in too many centuries and couldn’t keep it together. A bead of liquid formed at the tip of him and Belle dabbed her finger against it, making him moan.

“Please, Belle...”

“Is that good?” she asked.

“Yes. Too good, too good. Let me touch you, sweetheart, let me show you how good you’re making me feel now.”

Belle nodded, and the blush began to rise in her cheeks and chest again as she tugged off her boots, leaving her in just her trousers, her hands pausing at the waistband, seeming unsure for the first time since they made their declaration and shared that first kiss.

“May I?” Rumpel asked, his fingers hovering over her own. Belle nodded, with relief if seemed, and Rumpel quickly pulled at the bow keeping her trousers up before slipping his thumbs inside and slowly pushing them down her legs, until he was kneeling at her feet and encouraging her to step out of the bunched fabric. He sat back on his heels, taking in the entirety of her bareness, from the blush in her cheeks down to her turned in toes, every inch of her petite but beautifully proportioned.

“Oh Belle,” he crooned. “Belle, you are exquisite.”

He kissed her again then, working his way up from her knee towards the seam where her thigh met her body. He could smell her arousal, heavy and musky sweet, and his mouth watered at the thought of kissing her and tasting her there. First things first, though. He made his way up her other thigh, back to her centre again, his hands on her hips steadying her as her knees trembled.

“Lie back,” he coaxed, stroking up and down her thighs. The contrast of his greeny-gold skin against her pale pink gave him pause for a moment; he felt dirty beside her, as if he was somehow staining her loveliness with the darkness inside him. But then Belle shakily got down onto her knees in front of him, hooking her arms around his neck and kissing him with a fervour that told him she did not want to let go, and that she didn’t think that he was sullying her in the slightest.

“Can I kiss you, Belle?” he managed to rasp out.

“I thought that’s what we were doing.” She pressed her lips against his again, her hands finding his hips as she inched herself closer.

“Here.” He snaked a hand between them and cupped her sex gently; he could already feel the wetness in her soft pubic hair. “Kiss your luscious nether lips.”

Belle nodded, releasing her grip on him and letting him lay her down on the dewy grass. She looked so beautiful, surrounding by the fresh green and the wildflowers, like a wood nymph of legend, and Rumpelstiltskin intended to worship her as such a nymph should be worshipped. He kissed his way down her body, lapping over her breasts again and eliciting a soft moan from her lips as he went past, finally making his way down to her mons and nuzzling into her nest of fluffy curls, breathing in the delicious scent of her again. Finally, he kissed her, slipping two fingers into her slit to gently part her folds and press his mouth to her nether lips, flushed dark and swollen with desire, her juices fragrant and slippery on his tongue as he darted out to catch the liquid as it began to pool at her entrance, lapping up every trace of her essence that he could. She tasted just as good as he thought she would, better, sweeter than the richest honey, and he drank her down eagerly, feeling her pelvis shivering beneath him, her hips pressing up against him and urging him on, wanting more. Her thighs were shaking either side of his head, and as he dragged his tongue along her folds, seeking out her secret little pearl, he felt her hand come down to cradle the back of his head, her fingers tangling in his hair and scraping his scalp. The slight discomfort helped ground him, to lay aside his own arousal for the moment and concentrate all his efforts on Belle’s own pleasure. She was an eager participant in this union, but it would not do to forget that this was her first time. The more pleasure he could give her, the less pain she would feel, at least, that was what the books had always told him. He had to smile against Belle’s skin at the memories of nights in the Dark Castle after her arrival, spent surreptitiously sneaking some of the books from her library that spoke of women’s desires and how they achieved them, wondering in the dead of night and knowing that should he ever find himself in the glorious position of being able to make love to Belle that he really ought to do better in his ministrations than he had done with Milah, who had made  her opinion of his efforts loudly known.

He found her clitoris, lapping over the nub and hearing her moan, her thighs flexing and keeping his head down.

“Oh Rumpel,” she gasped. “That’s…” But words failed her as he licked her again, feeling the pearl swell and harden, peeping out of its hood and seeking more.

“Rumpel, please! More!”

If more was what she wanted, more was what she would get. He slipped one finger into her dripping entrance, careful of his claw-like nail, and pushed up gently inside her. Her walls were tight and clutching around him, so hot and wet and smooth. He groaned at the feeling, imagining what it would be like to press his cock inside her. The thought was almost enough to undo him there and then, but the little gasp that Belle gave when he entered her reminded him that before his cock was going anywhere, there were her needs to attend to first.

“Good?” he asked, before kissing her mound. Belle nodded eagerly, her head lolling back against the grass and her channel fluttering around him, trying to take him further. “You must tell me if you feel any pain.”

“I will. Please touch me again, Rumpel, please.”

He flicked the tip of his tongue against her clit again, and Belle keened, her hips lifting a little and pressing up against him. Rumpel circled his finger inside her, petting at her gently and feeling her muscles relax, letting him add another finger. Belle moaned again; her chest was heaving and her eyes were closed, a blissful expression on her face as her fingers curled against the grass, pulling up muddy blades and clenching her fists as he continued to stroke her, drawing more and more of her delicious juices out and feeling them coating his fingers. She had to be close, she looked like she was falling apart.

“Please, Rumpel, kiss me again, I want…”

Her words broke off, replaced with a squeal as Rumpel licked over her clit and sucked the little nub; he felt her walls flutter and clutch around his fingers, a rush of warmth and heat, and he allowed himself a proud smile, coaxing her through her climax with little touches and kisses until her hand found his hair again, tugging a little and getting him to look up at her once more. Her eyes were narrowed with pleasure and a beautiful, sated smile was on her lips, a smile that he just had to kiss. But first, there was the rest of her honey to enjoy, and he pulled his fingers out of her entrance, her fluids shining and creamy on his hand, and he sat back to lick her essence off himself.

“Belle, you taste divine,” he growled, and she suddenly grabbed him by the arm, pulling him back down so that he was on top her, chest to chest, sweat mingling and sliding as his lips found hers at last, her tongue seeking out every corner of his mouth with abandon, tasting every trace of herself that she could. Her lips were glistening as she pulled away.

“I think it’s your turn,” she said breathlessly, grinning up at him. Her hands slipped from round his neck and ran down his back to his bottom, digging her fingers in a little as her pelvis pressed up against his, rubbing insistently against his cock and bringing his flagging erection back into eager life with the wonderful friction. God, he couldn’t think of anywhere that he would rather be than inside her at that moment.

“Are you sure?” he asked, bracing himself above her.

“Very sure,” Belle said. “I love you, Rumpelstiltskin, and I want you to make me yours.”

“Oh Belle, I love you too.”

He reached down, taking himself in hand and lining them up as Belle slipped her own fingers into her folds to open her up. She took the tip of him easily, and Rumpel rested his weight on his forearms, trying not to smother her and not to give in to the urge to thrust all the way in one swift stroke.

“Belle,” he groaned, pushing in slowly. “Tell me when to stop, sweetheart.”

“Don’t stop. I want you, I’ve dreamed about this.”

“I mean tell me if it’s uncomfortable.”

“I will.”

She couldn’t take him all the way, but it didn’t matter, she was soft and warm like silk around him, and Rumpelstiltskin thought for a moment that he might have gone to heaven. Then Belle was shifting her hips impatiently, encouraging him to move and he pulled out, plunging back in as deep as she could take him and revelling in the little grunts of satisfaction she gave. The noises she was making were so beautiful and erotic in his ears, drowning out his own frantic panting as his hips jerked forward desperately and he felt his own end coming, coiling in the pit of his stomach and finally releasing with a shout, spilling himself inside her, making her his. And oh god, he was hers, her willing servant and partner for as long as she would have him. His arms gave out then, quivering and then sending him collapsing onto her, his head pillowed against her collar.

“Oh, Rumpel…”

His name was a sigh from her lips and Rumpelstiltskin didn’t think that he had ever heard his own name sound as wonderful as it did then, in Belle’s sweet voice, whilst her fingers were curling in his hair and her legs were cradling his and his cock was nestled inside her so snugly. He felt like he could stay there forever, revelling in the way that they fit together so perfectly, but he knew that he had to move lest he crush the petite beauty beneath him. He pulled out, his seed leaking out of her and puddling on the grass, and rolled over, pulling her close into his side and letting the cool breeze caress their bare skin as they came down from the high. Running a hand down Belle’s back, he found her skin stained mossy green in places from the grass rubbing against it, and he had to chuckle. He had been worried about his darkness somehow rubbing off on her, and here she was, gradually turning green.

Belle gave a laugh of her own, a giggle that grew and grew until her whole body was shaking with it and she had to press her face into Rumpel’s shoulder until she composed herself. Although it was good to see Belle so happy and carefree, Rumpel couldn’t help but wonder what exactly had caused her so much mirth.

“Belle? What is it?”

Still giggling, she pointed over towards the trees and Rumpel followed her finger to see Pegasus peering at them, wearing an extremely unimpressed expression. Rumpelstiltskin gave a squawk of alarm, sitting bolt upright and grabbing the nearest article of discarded clothing to cover himself, but Belle just started laughing again and pulled him back down onto the grass beside her.

“Do you think he was watching for the entire thing?” Rumpel yelped.

“I don’t know. I hope he enjoyed the show if he was.” Belle’s giggles finally subsided and she looked at Rumpel with a happy, satisfied expression. “I know I certainly enjoyed myself.”

“Hmm.” Rumpelstiltskin glanced over at the horse again. “I really don’t think he’s going to like me any more than he did now. I shall constantly have to watch my back for fear of getting a hoofprint in it.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you from Pegasus,” Belle promised. They continued to lie in each other’s arms in the clearing for a while, just enjoying the closeness and the feeling of being together once more. At length they would go back to the Dark Castle and enjoy the delights of love again. Further down the line Belle would leave the castle for another adventure, and perhaps Rumpel would accompany her this time. But whatever happened, he knew that Belle would always return, and Pegasus would always bring her safely home.

 


End file.
